Nonparametric Estimation of Species Richness

Two procedures, the jackknife and the bootstrap, are discussed as methods for estimating the number of species by the sampling of quadrats. Explicit formulas for both procedures are presented and evaluated under a model with a random distribution of individuals. The jackknife and bootstrap are shown to reduce the bias although they underestimate the actual number of species if there is a large number of rare species and the number of quadrats sampled is small. When a small number of quadrats is sampled, the jackknife is shown to give better estimates. When the number of quadrats is large, the jackknife tends to overestimate the number of species and the bootstrap performs better.